


The Starkhaven Crier

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bleak Humor, Chantry Issues, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Kinloch Hold (Dragon Age), Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Canon, The Chantry (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: A portrait of two future apostates at ten-year-olds: Jowan and Surana are bored, get dragged to the Chantry for the good of their souls, and accidentally make the new girl from Starkhaven cry. Featuring Surana determined to be the one Dalish against letting the Maker come back, the self-hating mage in the Surana/Amell origin as the Starkhaven Crier, and the same Mother Prudence who sent Alistair to bed without supper.
Relationships: Jowan & Female Surana (Dragon Age)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Starkhaven Crier

"Do you think everyone’s so obsessed with the Fade because at least that changes?” Jowan asks. Ithilien Surana looks up from her book and considers him. They’re hiding in the library, away from the enchanters who want them to be serious in the chapel and didn’t think it was funny when Surana started changing the words of the Chant to food. First Enchanter Irving said if she does it again, he has to tell the templars, and she’ll be whipped, and while Surana dislikes being told not to do things, she dislikes pain worse. So they sit in the library, and they whisper, and they giggle, and they eye the templar watching them. Jowan lounges on his stomach, paging through a book about the Black City. Surana looks over his shoulder and keeps watch.   
  
“I mean,” Surana says. She pauses. “Isn’t it bad when it changes?” She glances around hurriedly, to make sure no one can hear them. The apprentices are allowed to discuss, of course, the Circle isn’t a prison as First Enchanter says, but they need to discuss with supervision--especially when they talk about the Fade.   
  
Jowan shrugs. “But it’s kinda cool, right? And the whispers…”

Surana is intrigued. “You hear whispers? When I’m in the Fade, or like, when I know I’m dreaming, all I see is colors.”   
  
Jowan looks uncomfortable. “I dunno. It’s whatever. It all sounds the same though, like the lyrium Irving let us taste. What colors?”   
  
Surana catches movement at the corner of her eye and shushes him as Mother Prudence comes into view. She takes the book Jowan is flipping through and sits on it, spreading her robes over it. Mother Prudence always confiscates whatever books they’re reading, to check for heresy, and Surana wants to actually finish this one sometime this month--it’s about the Black City, and it’s cool. When she’s in the Fade she can never see the city, but First Enchanter Irving says she’ll see it clearly enough, when she grows up.   
  
“Children,” Mother Prudence clucks. Surana remembers living with chickens. Her parents had a clutch, though it was hard to move with the aravels when the shem came around. Sometimes they had to give them away, which made her mother angry, but Surana has always hated the bird. They’re mean, and beady-eyed, and sharp with that beak. She eyes Mother Prudence: if Mother Prudence could shapeshift like Keeper could, she’d be a chicken, and then they could eat her. Which would be a little gross.

  
Jowan says something, because Surana isn’t. “Good morning, Mother Prudence!” He scrambles up to a sitting position, jostling Surana. Her robes flip and the edge of the book becomes visible.   
  
Mother Prudence’s eyes alight upon it. She swoops, grabbing the book so quickly Surana hits the ground. “What’s this?” she screeches. “Hiding heresy?”   
  
“It’s just a book,” Surana says desperately. She moves to snatch it back, but Jowan grabs her and shakes his head at her. She deflates, watching Mother Prudence page through the text rapidly. “It’s not...we were so curious about the Canticles, Mother Prudence! We wanted to read more, so we can best learn to devote ourselves to getting the Maker to come back at us!”    
  
Jowan looks at her incredulously. She makes a face at him: at least she’s trying.    
  
Mother Prudence, of course, does not buy her bullshit. She peers at her, and for a moment Surana sees that there is an old woman, who is tired, under that habit, and who is slightly amused. Then the reptilian chicken face comes back.    
  
“Child,” she squawks, “if you want the Maker to come back to us, why aren’t you singing the Chant? The Nones hour is coming upon us!”   
  
“Uh,” Surana says. She might have been taken from her clan, but she still remembers the old ways. She’s not sure her mother would approve of this.   
  
Mother Prudence, tucking the book under her arm, grabs her and Jowan and steers them into the Chantry. The prayerful look up at them curiously--a bunch of templars, a couple enchanters, and one snivelly new apprentice from Starkhaven who still cries at night. She didn’t get sent to Kirkwall or Ostwick because she already has cousins there, so they’re stuck with her. Surana makes a face at her as Mother Prudence marches them into a pew.   
  
“Crybaby,” she hisses. The Starkhaven Crier starts snivelling again.   
  
Jowan frowns, “Surana, you really do need the Maker.”   
  
“Nah,” Surana says. “I’m Dalish, I have a reputation for savagery I gotta keep.”   
  
They all have to sit at the very edge of the pew, even though it hurts their butts, so they can sing better. It’s all for the glory of the Maker. Glory, my ass, Surana thinks sourly, and almost says it aloud but Jowan gives her that look that means “shut up” and she does feel a little bit bad about making the Crier cry more, because she cried a lot when they took her to Kinloch Hold too. But it’s been two years and she’s tough, and Keeper always says that they are Dalish, so that means they can endure anything, and if the People endured the fall of the Dales, then she can endure singing the Chant, even though Mother Prudence doesn’t just look like a chicken, she sounds like one too. This observation she decides to share with Jowan, and it makes both of them giggle. The Starkhaven Crier narrows her reddened eyes at them.   
  
“Stop that,” she says. “We need to sing as good as we can. So the Maker comes back and we can go home again.”   
  
Jowan and Surana exchange a glance. Normally Surana is the blunt one, but she doesn’t know how to say it. Jowan sighs, realizing it’s his turn.   
  
“Hey,” he says. “That’s not what the Chant says.”   
  
The Starkhaven Crier’s eyes widen and she’s beginning to get angry rather than sad, which in Surana’s opinion is a lot better. “What?” she whispers.   
  
Surana steps in. “They don’t let us go home,” she says, as gently as she can. “Not ever. That’s in the Chant. ‘Magic is meant to serve man, not rule over them.’ That’s why they keep us in the Circles. To make sure we always serve.”   
  
“But I want to go home,” the Crier says.   
  
“This is home,” Jowan says. “That’s what the Chantry says.”   
  
The Starkhaven Crier is now crying in earnest, and one of the enchanters in the pew in front of them turns around to look at them. She looks at the three of them and shushes them.   
  
“Respect the Chant!” she hisses. “Respect the Chantry!”   
  
Jowan awkwardly begins patting the Starkhaven Crier on the back.    
  
“Honestly?” Surana whispers to Jowan. “Fuck the Chantry. I gotta get out of here.”


End file.
